Hi Christine,

I'm from a software house that develops both paper-based records management
systems and electronic document/records management systems, so hopefully I'm
fairly independent on this.

1) Certainly the costs of electronic document storage is much less than
paper storage; magnetic disk drive prices have dropped such that cost of
required disk space has become inconsequential.
The 10,000 sheet contents of a typical 4-drawer filing cabinet takes about 1
gigabyte of disk, at a cost of 2 or 3 pounds (in 10 years time this is
forecast as being 2 or 3 pence per gigabyte).

Paper storage costs (in a third-party store) can be quite cheap - say one or
two pounds per bankers box per year (and presumably in-house storage would
be similar) but this is still more than electronic storage, and the real
costs come when you want to retrieve documents (say £25-£30 to retrieve a
box).

Other costs of electronic storage are also low, data backup (to tape or
optical disk) is low cost (but a huge cost if data is lost !!!).

The longer term cost of electronic storage is a bit of an unknown, whatever
file formats and data storage technologies we use now won't be the ones we
use in 10,20 or 30 years time. However if standard file formats (such as TIF
or PDF) and standard database management systems (SQL based) are used now
there should be an upgrade path. I suspect that when the time comes, low
cost automatic updating of file formats will be offered. Certainly TIF and
PDF will continue for the foreseeable future.
Obviously many documents need to be retained for less than 7 years and these
tend not to be an issue, it is long-term storage that is more problematical.

For both electronic storage and paper storage there are also capital costs -
software, document scanners, barcode readers, etc.  This initial cost tends
to be higher for electronic document storage.
Scanning and indexing costs tend to be a few pence per page (2p or 3p ?,
more if done by a bureau), this can add up if you have a large backlog of
documents.

Electronic document costs (scanning, storage, etc) are falling, whilst paper
storage costs (storage, retrieval) tend to rise.

2) When scanning 'permanent' paper documents it is not usually necessary to
retain the hard copies, except where required for legal
reasons/signatures/historical documents etc. You can of course both retain
paper documents and use scanned versions of them for day-to-day use.
As you imply costs of storing permanent documents electronically will be
greater than short term documents, but assuming you use standard formats
this shouldn't be a big issue.



Steve Norris
Alliance Group
http://www.alliancegroup.co.uk



> -----Original Message-----
> From: The UK Records Management mailing list
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Christine
> Dowland
> Sent: 11 July 2005 14:26
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Electronic v Paper
>
>
> Dear All
>
> I need some advice about the comparative costs of electronic and paper
> records in order to advise departments implementing ERM.
>
> 1). Is it true that the storage costs of electronic records are
> considerably lower than those of paper copies, but the
> maintenance costs
> are significantly higher - and the longer that the records
> are required,
> the higher these maintenance costs will be?
>
> 2). When scanning paper documents, is it therefore advisable
> to retain the
> original hard copies in the case of records with permanent retention
> periods (ie. records that should ultimately be transferred to a Record
> Office for permanent retention) - to avoid the high cost of
> maintaining and
> upgrading digital images for ever?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Christine Dowland
>
> Archivist
> Isle of Wight Record Office
> 26 Hillside
> Newport PO30 2EB
> Tel. 01983 823820
> [log in to unmask]
>